Don't Try This at Home: My Ill-Advised College Application Essay from 2006
Don't try it anywhere else either.
I had forgotten this, my college application essay from 2006. It is, frankly, a baffling mystery why anyplace did NOT accept me. The only bigger mystery is why some places did.
Retouched only to change a few words, trim sentences the length of the Pacific Coast Highway — you know, the usual. Otherwise, here it is, the real thing.
HAU TWO RIGHT AH KOLIJ APLAKATION ESAY
(or, Step 1: Use Spell Check)
Writing college application essays is daunting. It has struck terror into the hearts of mankind since prehistory, when Lucy the australopithecus was rejected from UCLA (then UPLA: the University of Pangaea, Los Angeles) because her favorite activity, picking at her armpit, was not deemed “meaningful.”
The floor is now yours, my devoted, imaginary audience.
Q. How should I preface my essay?
A. “The following may not be reproduced, adapted, reprinted, edited, adorned with corgi stickers, calligraphed, marinated, or flagellated in any way, shape, size, or girth without the permission of my agent, Vincent “Vinny the Agent” Spaghetti-o, who is too busy borrowing paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to answer your requests anyway. This level of protection is because I am very precious. Deal with it.”
Q. How important is my first sentence?
A. First sentences are crucial. So, we suggest you grab the reader by the goddamn larynx, as follows:
BAD: “Since I was little, it has been my dream to go to Yale.”
GOOD: “Did you ever try to eat your own neck? It’s harder than it looks.”
BETTER: “What are you wearing?”
Q. How important is specificity in writing?
A. Specificity is everything:
BAD: “The defining event of my life was eating Rice-A-Roni.”
GOOD: “The defining event of my life was eating Rice-A-Roni during coitus.”
BETTER: “The defining event of my life was eating Rice-A-Roni (‘The San Francisco Treat’) during coitus.”
Q. Is it okay to stretch the truth a little in your essay, to make yourself sound more interesting?
A. Sure, but you will want to make sure your claims are unverifiable. Therefore, ambiguity is the watchword here:
BAD: “I was decapitated on the morning of July 15.”
GOOD: “I was decapitated on the morning of July 15. Or was I??”
Q. I forgot to proofread my essay for Harvard before I sent it off, and I later noticed 17 instances where I referred to Harvard as “The University of Montana.” Could this hurt my chances of admission?
A. Probably not. You’re probably fine.
Q. I also ended a sentence with a preposition.
A. You are doomed.
Q. I want to write an essay on my favorite activity. I know how many of these the admissions committee must see, so how can I keep it fresh?
A. Just demonstrate a deep and abiding interest in the topic. And engage the reader.
BAD: “I like eating human flesh.”
GOOD: “I have a deep and abiding interest in human flesh.”
BETTER: “I have a deep and abiding interest in eating human flesh. You?”
Q. So, it’s also cool to write an essay on my passion for bestiality, right?
A. The Princeton Review advises you should just list this one under “hobbies,” along with chess and stuff.
Q. Any general writing tips?
A. You want your readers to feel as if they are right there with you. Therefore, make your descriptions as vivid as possible. Consider these excerpts from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling, who clearly did not bother reading my helpful essay:
BAD: “It was not in the open fight
We threw away the sword,
But in the lonely watching
In the darkness by the ford.
The waters lapped, the night-wind blew,
Full-armed the Fear was born and grew,
And we were flying ere we knew
From panic in the night.”
GOOD: “It was not in the open fight (WHOK! UNGHH!)
We threw away the sword (HUNH!*)
But in the lonely watching (EYEBALL-FOCUSING SOUND EFFECTS)
In the darkness by the ford (RIPPLE RIPPLE SPLASH).
The waters lapped (LAP LAP), the night-wind blew (WHOOSH),
Full-armed the Fear (EEK) was born (WAHHH) and grew,
And we were flying (WHEE!) ere we knew
From panic in the night. (AIEEEEEEEEEEE)
Q. Well, that was annoying to read. Anything else?
A. Avoid passivity.
BAD: “A bad score on the SAT was gotten by me.”
GOOD: “I went and torched College Board headquarters, because a bad score on the SAT was gotten by me.”
Q. Any advice for those of us who have to write the applicant a reference?
A. Again, I cannot lay enough emphasis on the importance of detail.
BAD: “The applicant is the Antichrist.”
GOOD: “The applicant is the Antichrist. I have known her for three years.”
Q. How should I end my essay?
A. “Fin.”
Q. “Fin”?
A. Yes.
Q. What if I’m writing about dolphins?
A. Especially if you are writing about dolphins.
Q. What about manatees?
A. Look, what do I care what you do?
~ FIN ~
*Please note this is the official United Nations throwing-heavy-things sound effect.
I, for one, applied to five Ivy-league colleges during my last year at a prestigious, venerable Connecticut preparatory school for rich men's goof-offs (as my father used to say.) I graduated with what they call Honors of the Second Rank. I was rejected by all five, most probably because of the abysmal quality of those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned essays. I may have been hella smart in an ADHD sort of way, but I was just turning 17 and several years more mature than an eight-year-old.
Our dean of faculty took pity on me and got me admitted to a school in Pennsylvania where, it would be assumed, he had a friend who needed help hiding a body. It was a wonderful year. I played, and procrastinated, and futzed around, and probably broke 50 rules (and a few laws), and was cordially invited not to return. But I did have one seminal experience there which changed the direction of my life for good, and so it was not a total loss.
I transferred to a not-so-prestigious but stolid state university in Utah, got my act together, decided that math and chemistry and business sucked worse than a Dyson, changed my major to French and Italian and English, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Which just goes to show that ADHD can still pull the wool over the eyes of tenured professors if judiciously applied. But in the course of the four years there (with a year off to study at the Istituto Orientale dell'università di Napoli (when they weren't on strike, which was every other week), I did get the higher education that led to an M.A. in computational linguistics and ESL and a fulfilling career in the translation field.
All of which goes to show that the essays didn't really count for much at all in the end.
Last weekend while grocery shopping with my husband, I saw a display of Rice-a-Roni and started laughing. My husband wondered what was so funny. It would have been difficult to explain quickly in the middle of a grocery store isle, so kept it to myself. But you have for ever changed my perspective on this mundane little side dish.